This Norwegian act came to light in 2009 when founding member Kim Arly Karlsen and vocalist Benjamin Isar Jorgensen joined forces. Faanefjell is actually a Norwegian mountain and, according to Nordic folklore, the trolls that lived up there were forced to leave due to civilization. In addition to the original members, drummer Arghtyr and a bunch of guest musicians brought their own musical touch. Amongst them, Calto Arghamon (Trail of Tears, Dimension F3H), Ronny Thorsten (Trail of Tears) and Frank Orland (ex-Scariot, ex-Harm).
References can be made to Norway's own folk/black metal band Windir, but Fannefjell is far from being simply a copycat. As a matter of fact, even for a debut album, the band shows a great future as well as maturity. It's been a while since a good black and folk disc landed on my player, so Trollmarsj was more than a welcome opus to my ears. Needless to say these guys have good songwriting skills and are accomplished musicians. Their compositions are melodic, varied, sometimes intricate and nicely epic. The folkloric story of the mountain, humans, priests, fights and trolls is all over the place. Their unique sound is a harmonious mixture of folk, black, bit of progressive and a cool theatrical/ story telling Nordic edge. You can hear some mouth harp, violin, acoustic guitars and keyboards backed by crunchy riffs and pounding drums. The vocals are all in their native tongue and are as varied as the story's soundtrack. Most of the time the harsh vocals are present, but the narrative voice or the clean epic chants are as effective and evocative. The pace is not always set to the hyper blasting like some other Troll bands and the polka beat is not resorted to either. You will find a couple instrumentals as well here on track five and seven, namely "Soknardalr" and "Slaatt". The first one is a neo-classical tune with distorted lead and keys, while the last one is a folksier, violin driven and percussion number. With only good compositions from beginning to end, "Faanetrollets Vise", appears as their more varied and theatrically folksy and epic opus. On the other hand, all the tracks have also something interesting to propose.
Trollmarsj is a very pleasant debut offering from the Nordic trolls called Faanefjell, and I could only wish these musicians a long career.
Track listing:
1- Der Var Engang et Fjell
2- Faanestrollets Vise
3- Trollmarsj
4- Tre Tinner Bakom Bruen
5- Soknardair
6- Drikkegilde i Jotunheimen
7- Slaatt
8- Hedningens Time
9- Til Kamp
10- Her Hersker kun Troll og Mörkemænn
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